Light After Death
by Gridey
Summary: Because 'light versus dark' isn't as black and white as you might think, and both can be found in unexpected places. Roy/Ed if you squint.


A/N: Hello people of the internet. This is a kind of pointless drabble thing that is waaaay too long. I wrote it with the prompt 'Light vs. Dark' in an effort to overcome this stupid writer's block I have going at the moment, and just... kept writing. I think it has potential but I'll label it complete for now, and will maybe one day make it a chaptered story if it gets enough love (hinthintnudgenudge), and once I finish my in-progress story 'Love Guru'. This is my first venture into the FMA fandom, so I hope you enjoy! x

Story Prompt: "Light Vs. Dark"

* * *

The first thing Edward did when he got off the train – if you disregarded his giving a baleful glare to the conductor who announced "Central! Last stop, Central City!" with _way _too much perkiness for four in the morning – was to stare in dismay at the slushy mounds of snow that lay in wet, grey lumps about the station. He gave an annoyed huff, which misted in the air. Great. And here was yet another reason to punch Colonel Jerk-Face in his _jerky face_ when he saw him. As if he didn't have enough reason already, what with Mustang having sent him on what turned out to be little more than a six-week long _diplomacy _(hah!) mission to Xing, only to then drag Ed's backside back to Central to report the _minute _winter hit home. (Ed pictured the bastard's smug, handsome face looking out the window, pen poised over a missive that he signed off in a flourish the moment the first snow fell, laughing all the while in that infuriating way he had about dragging Ed from Xing, where the weather was so hot and dry that it made his automail burn, back to Central, where the weather was so icy that it made his _automail fucking burn_.)

…Okay, so that last image was maybe a bit uncharitable, but _fuck _if Ed was _not _in a giving mood right now.

He heaved his bag over his shoulder (flinching and muttering darkly at the ominous stiffness in his ports) and stomped his way from the empty train station along the dark, frozen streets to home. Fuck the bastard anyway. Ed had managed to catch an earlier train and get here a full twelve hours earlier than expected, and surely such proactiveness entitled him to a sleep in tomorrow. The thought of another shouting match with the Colonel actually made him snigger to himself and feel a bit better about being back in the cold, if only because it meant that he could snark at Mustang in person. It always made him feel good to break that smarmy façade of schmooze and to show something of the temperamental, sulky, _funny_ human being underneath who could yell and joke with the best of them. Ed (somewhat dramatically) liked to claim that the ambitious man 'walked a path of darkness', but then Ed would say something that was particularly astute or would react to a short-joke in a way that was particularly funny and the bastard would even smile like he meant it.

Letting muscle memory guide him now Ed stepped easily around a frayed rope that segregated the doorway of a club from the rest of the street, nodding carelessly at the buff bouncer standing alert behind it. Central was truly a city that never slept – at least this area where intoxicated youth danced and fucked and boozed their troubles away into the wee hours was – and to get to his house he had to pass through this street of wakeful, sultry red lights.

Ed smiled. His own house. It had been one of the perks that came with his promotion from Major. It was a nice, if exceedingly standard affair. Small, but with more than enough room to comfortably house Al when he came visiting. The younger Elric hadn't been around for a while, but with a permanent residence came a permanent phone number, and Al was always sure to call when he could even if only to nag Ed into going to bed at a decent time. Ed was always very happy to take these calls, for, well, the obvious reason that it was _Al_, but also because the house's electricity, gas, the works, was fully paid for by the military. The vindictive satisfaction Ed derived from taking really, _really_ long showers and knowing it was all paid for by military funds was perhaps the only reason why he didn't shove that promotion back in the Fuhrer's _face_.

The tempo of his stride was disrupted when he had to step over the outflung arm of a drunk lying sprawled facedown in the gutter. He'd quickened his pace once he'd started thinking of home, _thoroughly_ looking forward to lighting a fire and sprawling out in front of it with a good book, and had even been smiling. That smile had dropped like osmium in hydrogen gas as soon as he'd seen the drunk though – the blue of the grimy sleeve had been far too similar to military fatigues, making him think of _Mustang_, which reminded him of that thrice-damned _report_ he'd– _Wait._

Ed paused, frowned in thought, configured his expression into a complicated arrangement of fury and disbelief, took a few steps backward until he once again faced the drunk dressed in _military uniform_, and used a steel-capped boot to nudge away the black hair obscuring the guy's face.

Fuck.

Roy fucking Mustang was lying collapsed in the gutter.

Ed's body moved faster than the thought could complete itself. He threw himself to his knees and hurriedly used his automail to brush away the snow that had settled on his superior's coat, the fingers of his flesh hand checking for major wounds or evidence of foul play as best he could without moving the bastard and possibly making everything worse. A small amount of blood (not his) and some scuffs down his sleeves that hinted at some nasty bruising seemed to be the extent of the damage, so Ed dared to turn Mustang onto his back, his brain whirring and formulating solutions and hypotheses as fast as it rejected them – the man had no shortage of enemies, and if he hadn't been stabbed or shot then what if he'd been _poisoned_…?

But as the _fucker_ was rolled onto his back the smell caught up with Ed, who had to physically recoil as the stink of spirits and stale vomit ballooned up from the prone body.

Poison, indeed: and all of it self-administered.

"FUCKER!" Ed screeched, jumping to his feet and kicking Mustang sharply in the side. Flushed and snarling he jerkily picked up his luggage – which he'd dropped in that initial panic – and stormed away down the street. Baby-sitting _bastards_, he thought furiously, who get drunk, get into a fight, throw up all over themselves and pass out in the gutter _so _wasn't in his job description.

But the snow was falling in earnest now. When Ed chanced a look back down the street it was already difficult to make out the sorry heap of black and blue amongst all the white. "Fuck," he whispered harshly, and kicked a nearby lamppost so hard the light guttered. "_Fuck_!" He marched back to the Brigadier-General and began bullying him out of the gutter (and if it was difficult it wasn't because Ed was _short_, it was because Mustang was freakishly _tall_!), until at last the unconscious man was draped over Ed's shoulders in a kind of laughable parody of a fireman's hold, with one of Mustang's legs dragging on the ground and his neck angled in a way that he would feel in the morning. But somewhere in the battle to get him up there Ed had gotten vomit all up his calves, so see if he gave a _fuck_.

It was only four blocks from here to Ed's house, but hell if it wasn't the longest four blocks of Ed's _life_. Mustang _stank_, and even with Ed's automail taking the brunt of the weight Mustang was _heavy_, and Ed almost cried when he finally muscled open his front door and remembered that his bedroom area was _upstairs_.

Couch it was. The inevitable neck-crick might even teach the bastard a lesson.

First things first, though.

Tossing Mustang (and his luggage, which, due to lack of options, he'd carried home between his teeth) unceremoniously to the carpeted floor, Ed touched his hands to the array he'd long since carved into the fireplace and grinned in satisfaction when tongues of flame ignited the kindling still there from a month ago. The first few seconds stank of burning dust and cobwebs, but it was worth it for the warm glow it lent the cold house. Something taut inside was unwinding now that he was inside and fast on his way to being warm, and though still _pissed _he found himself cursing more out of habit than genuine spite when he hoisted up one of Roy's feet to drag the unconscious man across the floor on his back to the bathroom, before tossing him into the tub, still fully clothed, and turning the water on.

Mustang gave a high-pitched squeak that he would later be embarrassed about and jerked his limbs like one electrocuted at that first blast of cold water. His one remaining dark, narrow eye, now widened in shock, flew open, and he blinked stupidly at Ed. Who was sniggering.

"You squealed," the blonde said triumphantly, grinning a shark grin, "like a _little girl_."

"Huh," said Mustang, then coughed for a while because the cold water was still running and he'd breathed some in.

"No I take that back, even _little girls_ would think you were pathetic if they could see you now," Ed groused, but did twist the hot tap on and angle the showerhead away from the bastard's face. He wanted to mock the man, not _kill_ him. "You're at my place, before you ask. What's the last thing you remember?"

Mustang still had that same shell-shocked look on his face. "I-I went out for a drink, and I think I must still be drunk and hallucinating, because… _Fullmetal_?!"

"What, you hallucinating me green with six arms or some shit? I didn't think my face was _that _shocking."

"No, just your height," said Mustang automatically, prompting Ed to scowl and readjust the showerhead to point up the bastard's nose. He didn't do anything else though, because it had been a weak jab, and he could tell the man was still hammered. He made a mental note, however, to make the noisiest breakfast _ever_ come morning when the bastard was nursing the hangover from hell.

With his host duties more or less fulfilled Ed stood to leave. "Get yourself _squeaky _clean," he called over his shoulder, because maybe he was holding a grudge after all, "and try not to drown in the tub, because if the 'Flame Alchemist' dies _showering _I am _so _reading your eulogy and telling everyone. Make sure you get all the puke out of your hair. Towels 're on the rack to your left."

Leaving the bastard to remember how to use soap on his own (Ed snorted. He wasn't overly concerned about that. Knowing Mustang he probably had a daily grooming routine so precise and regular that he could wash, shave and deodorise _in his sleep_) Ed scurried to his bedroom and finally peeled off his leather pants, grimacing at the slick bile that glistened in the creases. Mustang was in the house's only shower but upstairs had a toilet and a sink so Ed, naked, stole a few minutes to dunk his head under the faucet and rinse the travel grime from his hair and wipe his body down with a damp cloth. God damn, he was tired. He pulled on a pair of sleep pants, paused, grabbed a second pair for Roy, and made his way back down stairs.

It was past five a.m. now but the season being what it was the sun wouldn't rise for at least a couple hours more. The workday would begin soon though, and Ed supposed he should call the office and leave a message saying that Mustang wouldn't be coming in to work. He cracked a sleepy smile imagining Riza's face when she heard that Mustang was taking a sick day because he'd decided to get plastered on a Tuesday night. _Ha._

A quick peek in the bathroom revealed Mustang still sitting crouched and fully clothed in the tub, clumsily rinsing shampoo from his dark hair and getting tangled in the strap of his eye-patch. Ed chucked the sleep pants on the bathroom floor. "Jammies for you princess", he called. "I'm going to sleep. You can sleep on the couch, or in Al's room if you reckon you can make it upstairs. Oh, and in case you're misunderstanding anything here, I'll clarify now: I'm pissed. I am _pissed off _at you like you would not believe. I am also very cold and about to pass out on my feet. So I've decided I'll postpone vocalising the extent my pissedness until tomorrow."

Roy, looking very small and childlike, all wet and soapy and wide-eyed in the tub, opened his mouth to say something, but Ed really was sleepy and had been a _more than _gracious host considering the circumstances, so he just yawned and waved Roy off before trudging upstairs. He had barely snuggled under his quilt when tiredness overcame him and he fell into slumber.

* * *

Ed was woken by the feeling of the mattress dipping and a body moving across the bed. "Noooo," Ed groaned and punched weakly where he thought the bastard was. He let his arm fall with a _thump_ when it didn't hit anything. It was too dark to see the little timepiece he kept by his bedside but his internal body clock told him he had been asleep for less than twenty minutes. "It's too early and I'm _too sleepy_ for this bullshit you fuck-head. Go to _Al_'s bed. This is _my _bed."

Roy didn't say anything and didn't really _do_ anything either, except slip under the quilt and touch his fingers to the ends of Ed's long loose blonde hair, which was weird, but Ed was sleepy so _whatever_. So with one last tug for his deserved portion of covers and one last weak kick (Ed grinned sleepily to himself when he finally managed to boot the fucker's shin) Ed drifted back into darkness.

* * *

The next time he woke Ed was feeling considerably more rested, and it was to the prickly weight of someone watching him sleep. Normally this wouldn't be enough to rouse a sleeping Ed – _cannons_ on occasion weren't enough to rouse a sleeping Ed – but the stare was accompanied by soft muttering. As his brain slowly ascended from the silky black waters of sleep the words came to him:

"—_terrible things, and I couldn't stop myself and it was just like before, I could see them char and melt. Ed's back, he's here, so why after ten years and I don't know what to do, Maes, I need you here, I—"_

Ed must have made a noise then, because the disjointed mutterings stopped suddenly mid-syllable. He cracked open one bleary yellow eye, and the face of the timepiece on his bedside table reflected in that stare. It was still relatively early, but there would be no going back to sleep now that he was awake, he realised morosely. The muttering had stopped but the uncomfortable pressure of that gaze continued. His brain was beginning to wake up. Ed groaned and mumbled something unintelligible but doubtlessly crude into his pillow. That's right; he was _pissed _at Mustang, who was in his bed. Ed turned around and met that steady gaze with the sharp-edged weight of his own.

Mustang was sitting up in bed – still loosely clutching Ed's hair, he noticed irritably, the weird drunk – and looking at Ed, yes; but distantly, and as if in relation to everything else in the room. A lot of Ed's meagre belongings were still in boxes due to his past habits as a nomad but, slowly, the idea that he might actually have a permanent home now for the first time since _Never Forget_ had begun to tentatively suggest itself. Ed would never forget _Never Forget_, but it had been _years_ now and slowly little personal possessions had spilled into the house almost despite themselves: the clothes on the floor, the alchemical tomes arranged alphabetically on the bookshelf (Al's influence) and piled in corners (Ed's contribution), the shag rug Al had bought back from Drachma, the photograph of Winry and Pinako on the mantelpiece… Even though the house was technically army property it had been indubitably stamped with the eclectic whirlwind presence of _Ed_, and Ed could no longer in good conscience say that this place was just a room to sleep in when he was back in town.

And here was Mustang, his deep dark eyes drinking all this in in what pale winter light made it through the thin yellow curtains.

Ed let his breath out in a whoosh and reminded himself that he was angry.

The fact that Mustang's eyes were trained on Ed so intently meant that he was very aware when Ed remembered his ire. Mustang nodded carefully, then laboriously scooted down the bed until he could lie horizontally and cover himself with blankets until not even a tuft of dark hair escaped. "I'll make you a deal, Fullmetal. How about you fetch me my uniform, _without speaking a word_, and I don't make you hand in your report tomorrow. That whole equivalent exchange you love so much."

Ed snorted, unimpressed, and yanked the blankets back (suppressing his own shriek when his own warm cocoon under the covers was disturbed). What that revealed didn't surprise him. When Mustang was beneath the blanket his statement delivered in his General voice had sounded arrogant and assured, but the dark-haired man had a knack for not wearing the tone of his voice. It was part of what the straightforward Ed hated about him, because he was never sure what to believe – how he looked or what he said. "_Fuck that's freezing – _Wasn't gonna hand it in tomorrow anyway, Colonel Shit-head."

"Brigadier-General", Mustang corrected blandly. His face was very pale, and the tepid grey light made the circles under his eyes look ghoulish. "I worked hard for that promotion, least you can do is _remember_."

Like Ed gave a shit. _Brigadier-General-Bastard_ just didn't roll off the tongue, somehow. Ed smirked suddenly. "Well Mister Big-Shot Brigadier-General", he mocked. "Shouldn't that be all the more reason to get up, and face the music? Getting sloshed _out of your mind _on a work day, what an example to set for your subordinates!"

"I didn't realise you cared so much for military protocol. And I'd be more than happy to get out of your hair, if only you bring me my clothes, and a phone. I suppose I must call the Lieutenant and inform her of my whereabouts…"

Ed was a little taken aback by this cool acquiescence. He frowned, and stood up from the bed. If he couldn't believe the voice, he'd have to believe the face.

Mustang tensed. "_Don't…_!"

Ed swiftly yanked the curtains apart, exposing a sickly pale, curled-up Mustang to the waking world. Ed balked. Mustang looked like _shit_, and not even nasty-hangover shit. His one visible eye had heavy bags and was still glazed; his weakly grasping hands that fumbled to pull the blanket back over him were stiff and uncoordinated; and even after his bath there was a pervading odour of whiskey about the man. This accompanied by the dark bruises now _very_ evident down Roy's arms and down one side of his shirtless, scarred chest, made Roy look like the most pathetic figure _ever_. He looked like a beaten wife.

"Fuuuuck" Ed whistled, and peered into Mustang's muddy eye. "Did you even get any sleep? And you're _still_ drunk, aren't you? Jeez, how much did you drink that you're _still _drunk? You're going to want to _die _when your hangover catches up with you…"

"I'm _fine_," Mustang snapped, and succeeded at last in picking up the blankets with his numb fingers and ensconcing himself in the covers, shifting about until he successfully turned himself into a sulky blanket-burrito.

"_Definitely _still drunk", Ed sighed in frustration, and raked his flesh hand through his hair. "Jesus."

"If I'm such a pain, you're _more_ than welcome to _fetch me my uniform and let me leave_. Honestly I don't know why you didn't just call the Second Lieutenant to take me off your hands in the first place."

Of all the… "Would you get over yourself already?" Ed said angrily. "I get it, you don't want me seeing you all sick and angsty and disjointed. _I get it_. But I have, you _are_, and like it or not I was the one who found you half-dead in the gutter. So like fuck I'm handing you over before I make you suffer for putting me through that."

Or so he said, but why _hadn't_ he just called Havoc? Honestly it just hadn't occurred to him, and fatigue had definitely contributed to the oversight. But he'd be lying if he said it was just that.

Ed sighed, again, and looked at that sad lump of miserable man wrapped in blankets. Because the truth was: each of them had no one else but the other.

…God, he hated to think that. It was a depressing thought, a thought that sobbed into its own handkerchief, but there you go. Sure, Ed had Al, and always would, but Al was his own person now and there was a physical distance of hundreds of miles between them. And sure, Mustang had his staff, but his political ambitions and his own reservations kept them all, even Hawkeye, at an arm's length. The two may have gotten a _little_ friendlier over the years, but Ed and Roy miniskirts-are-great-and-oh-hello-Fullmetal-I-didn 't-see-you-there-because-you're-so-short-har-har-h ar Mustang were hardly _that_ close.

And they were still the closest the other had.

"You used to go to Hughes for this kind of shit, didn't you", said Ed, and felt something in his chest ache when that bundle of blankets curled in on itself and shuddered. Ed steeled himself and forced himself to keep speaking, low, pervasive. "I don't know all the details of how you lost your eye, like I don't know all the details of what happened during the Ishbal war, but I know that since Archer you've been walking around with half your world always in darkness. And I know that you must see terrible things in that darkness. That children burn

- _that shadows writhe - _

that all the people you've ever hurt parade before you and blame you

- _that your mother-not-mother writhes in agony on the blood-soaked floor and shrieks like a hell beast while your brother dissolves into the slipstream - _

and all you can do is scream and scramble around in that darkness and get tangled about yourself and your horror until you wake, and even then you're not safe, and you want to set fire to everything because it's the only way you know how to respond anymore to things that make you feel guilt and fear

- _and all you can do is scream and scramble around in that darkness and get tangled about yourself and your horror until you wake, and even then you're not safe and you know that no matter what you do it will never, ever be enough, and your will be half a man forever with your heavy steel limbs an embodiment of all that guilt and fear - _

and I know, believe me, I know."

"You don't know," said Mustang, his tone level, final, and absolutely cold. "And you will _shut up right now_, you selfish, intrusive _child_."

Ed screwed up his nose.

He breathed.

He would believe the face.

He crawled speedily across the length of the bed, ignoring Mustang's grunt of surprise when his blanket-ensconced body bounced with the shifting mattress, then reached forward, pulled aside a square of blanket, and used his automail finger to _stab _what was revealed.

"_Ow_!" Mustang looked up at Ed in wounded disbelief, his eyes actually watering a little at the smart. A red mark was already blooming on his forehead. "You _brat_, that's going to _bruise_…"

Ed sat back on his heels and scoffed. "Yeah? I went easy on you, old man. Try getting belted with wrenches, or pummelled in a spar by a suit of armour. But seriously, if I could put current-you and fifteen-year-old me in a dark cave, you'd think you were hearing an echo. Trying to carry the weight of your sin alone? Alienating people who want to help, for the sake of your pride, and dignity? Sounding familiar?" Ed shook his head with a rueful smile. "I had Winry and Al to keep me in check though, any time I started down that path. It became a Pavlovian response," he joked, "I thought of self-sacrifice and my skull ached."

Roy snorted, and Ed grinned back, a bright flash of white teeth in winter gloom.

"I know, I know; it didn't exactly stop me. A little headache wasn't going to keep me from being a broody teen." Ed let his grin fade, and stared Mustang straight in the eye, all seriousness. "The point is, I had people to help me. I wasn't carrying everything alone, though sometimes I liked to think that I was. And now here _you_ are, thinking that your sins are a wound that can never heal, that you can only keep running from everything you know you cannot remit…"

Roy was still drunk. He looked unbelievably sad, and lost. But Ed was if nothing else the personification of the determination to vanquish personal demons, and nightmares were looking back when you could only move forward. If you ran you'd run forever. You had to face these things that would overwhelm and consume a weaker man, and use your regret as a force to drive yourself forward so that you could accomplish great, impossible things.

Ed knew that Mustang couldn't afford weakness in this quest for Fuhrership and that that's what the man had told himself before he'd underestimated how much alcohol it would take to forget about the charred children in the darkness behind his eyepatch, but there was a difference between having a reason and having an excuse…

…But there was time enough for that, he'd said enough of his piece for one night; and Mustang needed sleep, to think on what had already been said, and to sober up.

"Sleepy-time, Colonel", said Ed quietly. Upon seeing Roy's expression Ed took pity and added, "I'll wake you if you look like you're having a bad dream, okay?"

And without even moving to lie down the Roy-cocoon closed its eyes and in seconds was asleep.

Ed watched silently for a few moments, then eased off the bed. He left the door open when he left the room, to better hear any disturbances, and padded downstairs as quietly as he could given his automail foot. Gate, and he'd been so angry when he'd first dragged Mustang in off the street, and now here he was, what, being a psychiatrist figure for the man? Ed snorted. Like _he_ was a picture of mental health. But there really was no one else, not anymore.

There were things to do, so Ed rolled up his sleeves and got to doing. He finally caved and called the office to let Havoc know what was happening (who, in turn, called off the search party, a.k.a. Riza with a semi-automatic), then spent some time attacking the dust that had settled over all the surfaces of the house with a wet rag. He emptied the fireplace of ash, washed both his linens and Roy's soiled uniform and transmuted them dry – all the little domestic things he'd picked up after Al had left. He was distracted from storing the last of the cleaned pillowcases by a vicious growl that rumbled up from his middle, so after giving his belly a disturbed look he went to the kitchen to see what was for eats.

A quick rummage through the kitchen cabinets revealed little more than a handful of vegetables, all either mouldy or sprouting green shoots; some cheese he had to sprint outside with, holding it at arm's length, gagging unattractively; some spaghetti, and a varied stack of tinned things that Ed's brain helpfully compartmentalised as 'misc.' One of the tins had meat sauce, so Ed shrugged, set a pot of water to boil, and made Bolognese for breakfast.

The Colonel (Brigadier-General) was so friggin' pale that the bruises down his arms had to look worse than they were, but that wasn't really saying much. There were finger-shaped welts branded in blue about his forearm. Someone had grabbed him, hard, when they bodily threw him from whatever bar he'd been getting wasted at. That spoke of fright, and anger. Mustang was always careful to never wear his gloves when he drank, and when speaking to a stupid but high-ranking official to interlace his fingers or fiddle with a pen– any configuration that wasn't _snap_. But if he _had _gotten frightened and snapped, even without his gloves, and someone had seen and known him and recognised the gesture… Well, they would have been frightened.

This was all conjecture, of course, Ed reminded himself as he grabbed the pot from the stove with his automail hand so as to drain the spaghetti. Ed couldn't know what the space behind that eyepatch held. But he didn't think it was unrealistic to assume that Roy would come to him one day, and that Roy wanted him there, and that he blamed himself far more than he blamed anyone else, including Ed. Roy had scorned him from the comfort of that dark space beneath the blankets but he'd also held Ed's spun-gold hair so tenderly, his voice pushing but his body pulling close.

Ed was on his third bowl of spaghetti when Roy descended the stairs. The man still looked horrible – a few hours sleep hadn't completely bleached those bags, and his naturally pale complexion maintained a grey tinge – but he'd made some visible effort to comb his hair, and he no longer smelled. He walked in a slow lurch and held tight to the banister when he descended. He winced in the light, and at the light scraping of Ed's fork against his bowl.

Ed, feeling somewhat magnanimous, gestured to the pot of pasta with his head. "Grub's over there, if you're hungry."

Roy's complexion turned distinctly green, so Ed shrugged (more for Ed!) and shovelled another forkful into his mouth, sending flecks of meat flying across the table. Roy walked over and gingerly eased into the other chair.

Mustang cleared his throat. "I… would like to apologise for my most recent behaviour," he said quietly. "I was… not myself."

"Drunk off your face is what you were", Ed snorted, and scraped the last of the sauce from the bottom of his bowl. He gave a belch and leant back in his seat, satisfied.

Roy nodded uncomfortably. "Yes, that. I'm sorry you had to see that. But, well, thank you. You could have left me there in the snow, and I would have deserved it, but you didn't, and… I am not ungrateful."

Ed shrugged awkwardly, flushing a little. He wiped the last of the Bolognese from his mouth with the back of his hand. "Almost did. You remember, then?"

Roy started to nod, then winced and cradled his head. "Yes," he said instead. "Yes, I remember everything. It's just one of those things with me, I always remember come morning."

"Sucks," said Ed conversationally, and Roy smiled in wry agreement. Ed shook his head. "Look, don't worry about it, okay? I already knew you were a pain in the arse when I became your subordinate. And like I told you already, it's not as though I don't understand where you're coming from."

Mustang breathed a laugh and shook his head. "And just when did you become such an adult, Fullmetal?"

"I've _always_ been an adult", Ed said indignantly, waving his fork around for emphasis. Roy just smirked.

"Oh in physical years maybe, but just who was it who got handed the kids' menu when he went out for dinner with his brother?"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT THAT HE CAN'T EAT AN ADULT-SIZED MEAL BECAUSE HE'D FALL IN THE SALAD AND GET MISTAKEN FOR A BEAN AND EATEN UP?! Wait, Al _told_ you? Oh he is _dead_…"

Roy threw his head back and laughed, loud and long. He managed to catch his breath and somewhat compose himself when Ed's flailing fork came too close to his one remaining eye for comfort, but humour still showed itself in the creases by his eyes. "Thank you, Fullmetal. I'm glad you're still you, even in spite of everything. I had a bad night yesterday but truly I haven't had one so bad in years, not since the months right after the war ended. And I suppose I can thank you and your brother for that, since the two of you became a kind of hobby, or a project I could immerse myself in. You were a very effective distraction, and I did genuinely enjoy talking theory with you, because you were so _bright_. So impossibly, unbelievably _brilliant_. You did such impossible, wonderful things and it was a joy just to watch you sometimes. Truly a golden boy. Somehow when I was around you boys, the darkness didn't seem so claustrophobic."

Ed flushed at the unexpected praise. "Hell, I'm glad, Mustang. Well while we're on an honesty kick I might as well say you too. It was the same for us. It was how Al used to deal with my moods when he didn't feel like beating my butt in a spar – he'd just mention your name and let the tantrum run its course until I forgot that I'd ever had any other annoyances in my life. But, for future reference, don't ever call my and my brother a project ever again. Or a hobby, for that matter."

"You know I didn't mean it like that. Noted, however."

Roy still looked terrible and the black smudges under his eyes hadn't magicked away in the last few minutes, but there was a peaceful light to his eye now that was almost happy.

He fingered the black strap of his eyepatch idly.

"Hey, Ed… Can we talk?"

Ed smiled, and there was sunshine in it.

* * *

A/N: So yeah, kinda pointless and sappy without the romance. I did warn you!...I sincerely apologise. OTL


End file.
